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Saturday, October 5, 2019

BOOK REPORT ON MEYER LEVIN'S HISTORICAL LIFE IN PALESTINE TO ISRAELI STATEHOOD

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                         
My love and admiration goes out to Meyer Levin, author of a 2nd book of his that I have read.
Here's what the encyclopedia Brittanica said about him; short and sweet.

"WRITTEN BY: 
LAST UPDATED:  See Article History





Meyer Levin, (born October 8, 1905, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died July 9, 1981, Jerusalem), American author of novels and nonfiction about the Jewish people and Israel.                                        
Levin first became known with the novel Yehuda (1931). In 1945 he wrote and produced the first Palestinian feature film, My Father’s House (book, 1947), which tells of Jews who are driven out of Poland and reunite in Palestine. Other major works are Citizens (1940)—about the 1937 steel strikes in Chicago, in which 10 strikers were killed—and Compulsion (1956)—about the Leopold-Loeb murder case.  
""He also authored the best-selling documentary-novel Compulsion, based on the Leopold-Loeb murder case.  Levin was involved in litigation for many years against Otto Frank, father of Anne, over the right to have his dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank performed. Additionally, Levin made several highly acclaimed documentary films highlighting the plight of Jewish refugees in Europe after the Holocaust, and their efforts to resettle in the soon to be state of Israel."                                               
From 1933 to 1939 Levin worked as an associate editor and film critic with Esquire magazine and was a reporter of the loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. He was also a war correspondent during World War II. Other works include The Settlers (1972) and The Illegals (1977), a film telling the story of the journey of Jewish immigrants from Poland to Israel." He tells all about what he went through to make this film in his book, IN SEARCH.  
I'm almost to the end of his autobiography, titled: IN SEARCH, a hardback black cover, no illustrations book.    The book came from amazon.com; old, slightly wrinkled pages, so I was lucky to get it.  It's the most amazing book I've ever read!  Being Jewish born in 1905, he was slightly older than my mother, and wondered about his Jewishness.  He wasn't orthodox, which made him wonder even more so.  Something about this nagged him and he wound up making aliyah to Palestine, and doing it several times, always thinking about writing.  Finally he got into the attacks in the world war, and then in Palestine by the Arabs.  He was there and wrote most descriptively.  He made aliyah at a period in time when it was dangerous to go over there.  That he was American born made it even more surprising.  
The first book of his that I read was THE SETTLERS, a book I found in Good Will's store marked way down, and it was also the most important book I have ever read.  It tells about the first aliyah of people from Russia to Palestine in the 1880s and what they had endured, written as historic fiction.  It's a very long book, ending up in WWI.  After reading it, I felt I had gone through all they had as well.
Oh how I would love to see what he had filmed.  After reading IN SEARCH, I know what he and his crew went through to film this.  Never before have I appreciated what our settlers went through to get us our Israel.  All this from a man who was shaky about being Jewish who explored his fate in life to appreciate it all the more and risk his life in so many ways and document so many of the special moments during our extraordinary history.  In reading this book, I can see even more how terrible the British were towards the Jews trying to settle in Palestine and what lengths they went to prevent Jews from settling to the point of cruelty.  Thank you so much Meyer Levin.  You should go down in history along with Israel's founding fathers.    
Here's THE OLD BUNCH, that he wrote in 1946.      It's a rare copy, selling right now for $125.   "One of the most significant and controversial Jewish Chicago literary figures of all time, Meyer Levin wrote the The Old Bunch, the classic novel of Chicago’s Jewish West Side during the 1920s and 1930s."                                         
"Meyer Levin admitted a sort of kinship with Leopold and Loeb as another "young, intellectual Jew," but one who made very different choices: "I... had turned my precocious energy into accomplishment; they, the rich south siders, turned the same qualities toward destruction." In his introduction, Gabriel Levin notes that "this wary kinship... would provide my father with the analytic and sympathetic tools [to enter] the mind of Judd Steiner."
After graduating from the University of Chicago, Meyer became a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. He wrote 20 fiction and nonfiction books, including a novelization of the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, The Architect, published in 1981, the year he died."  "Levin died of a stroke Thursday night in Jerusalem. Mr. Levin, who lived in New York and spent his summers in Israel, was 75 years old.   Mr. Levin always had a new book in the works. In November, his novel ''The Architect,'' a roman a clef about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, will be published by Simon & Schuster. It is described as the story of a Wisconsin youth who comes to Chicago in an era of robber barons and muckrakers and reshapes the American landscape.

 I just realized that Meyer Levin died 0n July 9, 1981 when I was living in Israel.  I had made aliyah in September 1980.  I had the opportunity to meet for the first time my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot in Jerusalem who lived on Dor Vdor Street (generation to generation), also a famous man in his own right.  If I had known about Meyer, I might have been able to meet him.  

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2 comments:

  1. Nadene GoldfootOctober 5, 2019 at 8:54 PM

    Gabriel Levin is his son. "Gabriel Levin (Born 1948, Paris) is a poet,[1] translator and essayist.[2] He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children. Levin is one of the founding editors of Ibis Editions, a small non-profit press devoted to the publication of the literature of the Levant, and serves as its Editor-at-large.[3] Levin's work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including PN Review, The Times Literary Supplement, the Chicago Review, Raritan and Parnassus.To These Dark Steps, a volume written in response to operation "Cast Lead" (2008), was set by British composer Alexander Goehr for tenor, children's choir, and ensemble and premiered September 2012 at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham.[4] Levin is the son of the American novelist Meyer Levin (best known for Compulsion, the first "non-fiction novel") and French novelist Tereska Torres.[5].

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  2. umairFebruary 19, 2021 at 2:25 AM


    This post is very nice and amazing. Please, continued to write same wonderful post.

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